Insights from our Editorial Team

That’s right. For this installment of our popular Utility2Utility interview series, we’re going Down Under to chat with Michelle Taylor, manager of technology development at Ergon, about the Australian market, reliability, SWER and energy storage.

For companies that don’t want merely to succeed in the utilities industry but to lead, continual business transformation is a must. It appears, however, that actually achieving this transformation is also one of their most vexing challenges.

For this installment of C-suite Insider, we continue a conversation with Sandy Fisher, director of electric system project management at Pepco Holdings, that began with our women-in-energy series. Here she examines just what the industry is doing right (and wrong) these days.

With the continued deployment of advanced systems, sensors and other data sources, including hundreds of millions of smart meters, utilities are faced with an expanding universe of data that can lead down myriad roads, many of which are unproductive, confusing and downright distracting.

Synchrophasor technology has come a long way in a few short years, with recent system deployments delivering early reliability benefits and cost savings in system operations, model validation and forensic analysis.

Direct pressure from regulators and customers to bring costs down is driving an increasing number of utilities, both in regulated and competitive energy markets, to strategically pursue new networks and network elements that enable better communication and can be accessed and configured remotely and on-the-go.

Last summer, we put together our first industry quiz full of esoteric questions---with even more esoteric answers. That quiz covered acronyms, utility powerhouses and the first U.S. president to have electric power. Our new one today looks at a century of progress (though well after Disney did the same), a few power basics, and ‘80s rap music. Ready for round 2?

Technology, standards and policy all play a role in shaping the future of energy generation and distribution, while IoT and big data will greatly affect intelligent management, according to IEEE Fellow John McDonald.

Singapore Power Group (SP) is a leading energy utility group in the Asia Pacific. For this installment of Utility2Utility we spoke to Lawrence Lee, head of operations & projects, SP Services, about outage planning, smart grid and deregulated energy services--you know, all that smart cities stuff.

We asked: What were the biggest, most powerful elements in our power industry history? Utilities, analysts, vendors and consultants answered. Part one covered AC vs. DC, digital tech, DR and battery storage. Who know what's in part two? Take a look and ping us if you agree (or disagree) with their choices. Tell us on Twitter with the #powerbreakthru.

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